


Just Let Me Sleep

by Nitrobot



Category: Transformers: Prime
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grief/Mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 13:56:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5499611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitrobot/pseuds/Nitrobot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arcee can't even grieve without Starscream ruining everything (as always).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Let Me Sleep

**Author's Note:**

> mer christmas everywun  
> (this takes place before Partners BTW, so Arcee doesn't know that Starscream killed Cliffjumper yet)

At first Arcee was content with making the prosthetic outcropping of rock near the base her meditation spot- the dust grains itched in her joints if she sat too long and the wind would make her armour ring and groan as it slapped against the metal, but she didn't have the spark to move Cliffjumper's memorial to a more suitable place. The sunset was worth the drawbacks, anyway. After sparring sessions, Cliff would sit with her while they stretched the ache from their limbs and watch the evening drag it below the horizon. Sometimes she could pretend he was still with her, just too tired to say anything. 

But as the seasons shifted and she was given a first-hand experience of what the humans called winter, the Antarctica mission stretched out into months of blizzards and stubborn patches of damp rust all over her armour, she was forced to relocate anyway. She'd brave the cutting wind just long enough to brush snow off of Cliff's rocks, then skid down the ice until she found a road not completely crusted over. A five-klick drive brought her to a different mound of rock, similar enough to her usual one aside from the alcove carved into its southern face by years of erosion going back before she was even sparked. No matter which way the wind was funneled or how hard she felt Primus or Cliff's lost spark looking for her, she was safe huddled into the tiny cave.

Jack mentioned something about "Christmas", some sort of gift-giving holiday, before she left that evening. Maybe she should leave a present at Cliff's spot.

That thought was shoved aside by a sound that could only be described as a dying lilleth who'd taught itself to curse, and Arcee's blaster was out before she was even on her peds. The wide opening of the cave only showed a ceiling of snow piling down on the world, the flurry forming a hazy wall in front of her. But Starscream's jagged silhouette would have been obvious even in the middle of a scrapyard. Primus, even when she was doing nothing at all, he somehow found a way to irritate her.

The snow and the sheer volume of his swearing muffled her approach enough that she was close enough to smell the ozone his engines gave off. Her blaster burned against the armour column between his wings. "You have three nanoklicks to get out of my blaster's crosshairs."

Credit to him, he did _try_ to look menacing while trying to turn around with his peds buried knee-deep in snow. His servo looked like it was frozen in place as he pointed it at her, a shell of frost covering his missiles as his vocaliser shivered. "I was thinking of giving you _five_ nanoklicks, but if you feel like scrimping on the mercy..."

Primus, he was trying to bluff his way out of getting turned to a pile of smoking smelt. She couldn't tell if she was smiling from how numb her faceplate was. "Do you think I'm an idiot, Starscream? Your rockets can't work in these conditions."

Even through the gusts of snowflakes churning the air into a gale, Starscream's faceplate seemed to melt from embarrassment. He'd had the ancient weapons since Megatron first challenged the High Council, he'd know just as well as her how ineffective they were in low temperatures. Flakes sizzled as they floated near his armour, and the flew in a vortex around him as he shook his helm. "I never took you for an armament expert, Arcee," he said with only half his dignity intact. "Are you really willing to take that risk?"

She shrugged while her blaster barrel pulsed. "If it means giving you a few plasma burns to explain to Knockout..."

Denta gritted to stop them clicking together, Starscream was arrogant enough to fool himself into holding his ground for another few nanoklicks before finally lowering his servo and wings in defeat. "Alright, you've caught me," he hissed, curling his claws into balls of ice. "No need to look so damn smug about it."

There was plenty need, but Arcee decided to keep that to herself. "First things first; what are you doing here?"

Starscream's scowl looked ready to gnaw the ice in the air to pieces. "I don't see how that's any of your business, Autobot."

"It's my damn _business_ because as far as I'm concerned, you're trespassing." She wasn't about to tell him how near he was to the Autobot's base, but that didn't mean she had to put up with him spoiling what little free time she was allowed.

Starscream huffed frost through his vents as his scowl devolved into a lopsided smirk, and his wings almost wiggled. "I'd wager it's the same reason you're out here," he said. "Then again, you're not _trapped_ on a warship of psychotic imbeciles."

Arcee held back from pointing out he was one of those psychotic imbeciles. "I know you didn't come out here just to complain." _'Not when you're comfortable doing that just about anywhere.'_

"If you're really intent on interrogating me, Autobot, I'd recommend you do it where we're not in danger of having our energon frozen solid," Starscream suggested. Arcee couldn't tell if he knew there was shelter nearby or if he was just betting on luck, but she wasn't happy about dragging him into her cave anyway. At least his back was to the rocks, wings scraping against the granite as she blocked the entrance. 

"If you're cozy enough now, you can start talking," she said with her blaster keeping a constant mark over Starscream's spark chamber. He shrugged the last drifts of snow off before speaking. 

"I'm afraid you'll be sorely disappointed, dear- I was only out for an innocent soar when the snows forced me to land here." Arcee would have found it much easier to trust that if not for the grin and vocaliser those words came out of, but she didn't have much evidence to prove otherwise other than the fact he was slimier than a Sharkticon stranded in an oil reservoir. 

"Gotta say, I _am_ disappointed," she admitted. "No half-processed plans for delivering us all to Megatron's doorstep or something?"

Either out of humour or irony, Starscream smiled, and fanned his claws out in a parody of a peace gesture. "I swear on all of Vos."

_'On what's left of it, you mean...'_

"Now your turn, Autobot," he said while she was left remembering all that his leader cost them. "What brings _you_ out in the middle of nowhere?"

It was a struggle not to hiss, even with the cold sluicing through her systems. "I like my privacy."

All the trouble she went to staying calm was wasted on Starscream; his wings were practically mocking her as they raised parallel to his eyeridges. "Hm, I would have thought you'd have plenty of _that_ nowadays what with no partner to-"

Arcee's blade was just a few cable-inches away from his vocaliser when it frizzled against the razor edge crushing the component to the back of his throat. "Keep talking," she challenged, pinning his wings against the rock wall as they fluttered pathetically. "Give me a good excuse to slice your fragging helm off."

Bulging optics precariously balanced in his sockets, Starscream more floundered than gestured for release from Arcee's wrath. She obliged only to stop his servos flailing wildly, and to hear relief gusting through his vents as he rubbed at the newly notched cables on his neck. "Alright, that was in rather... poor taste," he conceded, coughing through frozen lumps of fear and energon on the cold floor.

Arcee sheathed the blade, if only so the engagement mechanism wouldn't lock from the ice around them, and watched him cough up all his pride with little remorse. "I wouldn't expect a Decepticon to know anything about grief-" she started, to an unexpected growl from the kneeling Seeker.

"Assumptions like that can make very dangerous situations for yourself, Autobot," Starscream warned, still shielding his neck with a row of claws as he brought one knee up from the ground. The red of his optics was dim, but the white pupils burned sulphurous up at her. "You think just because I don't spend every waking moment in a stupor of misery that I don't know loss? Are you so naive that you think Decepticons cut all ties as soon as they take up the badge?"

Starscream had regained his footing by now with the air creating a halo of steam around him, and Arcee was feeling much more cautious about her speech. "Your words, not mine," was all she thought to say. Her blaster could still put some holes in his wings before his claws got to her armour, if she had to. 

"Megatron has taken enough from me, Autobot," he went on, leaning his back against the rocks despite the pressure on his drooping wings. "I still have my honour, _Seeker_ honour, to no-one but myself and..." Something caught in his throat then, more than just damage from Arcee's blade. "And my family," he managed to say. "The last thing I need is bots like _you_ questioning that."

She knew better than to ask what 'bots like her' meant. She had a more dangerous question in mind, anyway. "You already know I lost my partner. Who did you lose?"

Ten nanoklicks passed with Arcee convinced that she wouldn't get an answer, but talking seemed to be all that Starscream had the strength for now. "...My brothers," he choked.

It had been so long since she'd heard of a Seeker trine, Arcee had all but forgotten they existed until she felt the weight in Starscream's voice. Not just one, but two sparks he'd have felt snuff out and snap away from his own. The flood of pity was almost enough to make her forget he was responsible for filling more cemeteries than could fit on one of Cybertron's moons. 

With that in mind, she didn't apologise for his loss, but she wasn't suicidal enough to poke out hypocrisy in him. "And yet you still fight without them?" she asked instead.

"I have to," Starscream deflected, servos folded into shields over his chest. "Not like anyone else will try to stop Megatron. Not even your illustrious Prime."

Arcee managed the closest thing to a mechanical snort. "Only so _you_ can replace him and do even worse."

Bizarrely enough, Starscream just laughed. It seemed even more dangerous than a lunge from his claws. "If you say so, Autobot."

He was still laughing, even with her optics accusing him. "What's so funny?" she asked.

"You haven't been aiming at me like target practice for the past five klicks."

As she realised that, her blaster came back out on instinct, but she didn't feel the urge to heft it up at him for once. "And you haven't tried to slice me up like an Insecticon meal yet," she pointed out.

Starscream shrugged, wings scraping against rock seat. "For all you know, I'm just waiting for the blizzard to end."

"...You and me both." Arcee sighed, still keeping her faceplate to her hostage and playing the role as 'most ineffective jailer ever' as the flakes outside danced just out of reach of her frame. "Some 'Christmas' this is turning out to be..."

"What was that?" Starscream asked, in a strange mumble of a voice. 

She closed her optics over for the first time in a long while, actually surprised she didn't feel talons piercing her protoform as her vision went a comforting black. "Nothing." They eased open again, and Starscream's optics were closed as well.

Did he seriously just fall asleep?


End file.
